


Bear

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in exile is a life of rumors and worry. Thanks to Gryphonsegg for betaing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beckyh2112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckyh2112/gifts).



In exile, her choices were earth and water.

Ursa supposed she could have lived in one of the abandoned Air Temples -- it would have made her exile safer, and more complete -- but she couldn’t bear to be so fully cut off from any news of her children. Instead, she found a small tea shop at the edge of the Earth Kingdom, near the sea.

A tea shop. She wondered what her brother-in-law would think. Iroh’s only weaknesses had been good tea and his son. She had heard that he had changed, after Lu Ten had died. She wondered how much.

Rumors floated across the table from time to time; she steeled her spine and did her best to act disinterested. _Burned,_ someone said, and she kept her step even. _Exiled_ a few months later, and she poured the tea without spilling a drop. _No,_ another said half a year on, _not alone,_ and she thought of Azula.

What a fool she had been, to think they could change their fates.

 _Iroh,_ the man continued. _The Dragon of the West, on a fool’s errand with the disgraced son of the Fire Lord. What a picture they must be._

It was only then that she fled to the back of the shop and allowed herself tears.

Which was worse: That her son was doomed to wander in exile with an uncle who might not even care for him (oh, he'd seemed to, but that was when Lu Ten had been alive, and how might the death of a son have changed him?) or that her daughter was now alone with her father?

Still, she was a lady of the Fire Nation. She washed her face and went back to work.

The rumors quieted for a time. Ursa hoped the silence meant her children were safe.

And then the rumors about the Avatar began.

A boy, when he should have been an old man. _His laugh is like the ringing of bells,_ a man said, and the others clustered around him to hear more.

 _The Water Tribe,_ a woman said, knocking the mud from her boots.

Perhaps she should have chosen water after all.

Would she even recognize Zuko now? She knew Azula’s face, but the stories they told of his scarring....

Wong retired, and she took over running the tea shop. "I wish I'd had someone as reliable as you years ago," he said.

She smiled. She knew he meant it as the highest of compliments. It wasn't his fault she sometimes missed the servants, the bustle of the palace, Lo and Li gossiping in the corners. It wasn’t his fault she had left her children behind.

Zuko would be relentless, desperate to finally earn a place in his father's heart. And Azula had been born relentless. Avatars were peacemakers, but even they could defend themselves. She remembered her grandfather Roku, just a little, but enough to know he was as relentless as a bear.

She poured tea and made change and smiled at the customers, and her heart leapt in fear every time she heard the word _avatar._

 _The Avatar is dead,_ the woman said, taking her hat off and shaking her hair loose. _Ba Sing Se has fallen. We are lost._

Ursa had been checking the week's delivery. "What happened?" she said. She had lived there long enough to feign polite interest (she insisted, to anyone who inquired further, that her primary concern was good tea).

 _Crown Prince Zuko and Princess Azula,_ the woman answered. _May they rot._

Ursa nodded, and wished she could feel something more than hollowness in her chest.

She dreamt of Zuko that night, in the small room behind the shop she’d cleared to sleep in. He and Azula were the age they had been when she left, playing in the pond by the turtleducks.

"Can I feed them?" Zuko begged, and Ursa reached in her sleeve for the crumbs she’d taken earlier.

Azula smiled the smile that chilled Ursa's bones. "I have a better idea."

The pond boiled. Zuko, sobbing, ran into the water--

She woke, her heart hammering, sweat drenching her blanket.

 _You too will know the pain of losing a child,_ Azulon had said. _And I will take the child dearest to you._

Hadn't Azula always known that Ozai preferred her? Hadn’t Azulon realized that Zuko would have crumbled under the weight if his younger sister’s death?

"I did the only thing I could," Ursa said to the dark, and covered her face with her hands.


End file.
